Post by rainman on Sept 24, 2007 5:55:09 GMT -5
USF expecting first sellout Friday night
By Mickey Furfari
For the Times West Virginian
MORGANTOWN— The University of South Florida, youngest of the three new kids on the Big East block, has been celebrating a lot of firsts in football.
First-ever national Top 25 ranking, first-ever victory at Auburn two weeks ago, first-ever victory over then-No. 7 and favored West Virginia last year — and in Morgantown, no less.
Now the Bulls, ranked No. 18 with a 3-0 record, are preparing for what has been billed as USF’s first-ever Game of the Century. And it’s scheduled against the fifth-ranked Mountaineers (4-0) for Friday in Tampa.
Win or lose, the sky-high Bulls are anticipating still another first: The very first sellout in 63,000-seat Raymond James Stadium. Only about 3,000 tickets remained late Saturday night.
“Fun Is Just Beginning For Charging Bulls” read a headline on the sports pages of Sunday’s Tampa Tribune.
“Now they don’t have to take it one game (at a time),” the column by Martin Fennelly suggested. “There’s one game, one time.
“West Virginia, next Friday, 8 p.m.”
Both teams appear to be coming off one of their best performances. While the Mountaineers were mauling East Carolina 48-7, South Florida was disposing of North Carolina 37-10.
It had to be a relaxing, fun-loving afternoon for both squads.
So much so, players and coaches at WVU as well as USF started thinking about the following week’s showdown long before Saturday’s games had ended.
WVU coach Rich Rodriguez, who called the performance against ECU the best overall in several years, admitted that his charges already were thinking about the Big East opener.
“It’s a conference game, and the guys are anxious to starting Big East play,” he said. “USF us a really good football team. I’ve said this before, the Big East from top to bottom is as good as any conference in the country.”
WVU players appearing in the interview room also were willing to talk about the South Florida contest. “I felt like this was a statement we wanted to make,” said senior wide receiver Darius Reynaud. ”We played very well in all three phases.”
Jim Leavitt, USF head coach since it started football 10 years ago, admitted that he began looking to WVU in the fourth quarter of the North Carolina game.
Cornerback Mike Jenkins was quoted in The Tampa Tribune, “Coach Leavitt’s exact words: ‘I don’t want to lie, but in the back of my mind I was thinking about West Virginia. But then again, everybody was.’”
With Louisville already a shocking two-game loser West Virginia-South Florida shapes up as perhaps the earliest of the biggest battles leading to the 2007 Big East championship.
o Patrick Beilein has changed his mind about serving as a graduate assistant in basketball at Michigan this year.
The former WVU standout has accepted an offer to plasy professionally in Ireland and will depart on Friday.
His father, John, had been looking forward to having him on his coaching staff for his first year at the Big Ten school. He told the Ann Arbor News, “I think he would have been a tremendous help. An opportunity dropped out of the sky.”
Patrick said simply that he felt he had a little game left. “It just kind of happened. I knew I still could play a little bit.”
John Beilein doesn’t mind, though. “He can coach later on, but he can’t always play,” he reasoned.
By Mickey Furfari
For the Times West Virginian
MORGANTOWN— The University of South Florida, youngest of the three new kids on the Big East block, has been celebrating a lot of firsts in football.
First-ever national Top 25 ranking, first-ever victory at Auburn two weeks ago, first-ever victory over then-No. 7 and favored West Virginia last year — and in Morgantown, no less.
Now the Bulls, ranked No. 18 with a 3-0 record, are preparing for what has been billed as USF’s first-ever Game of the Century. And it’s scheduled against the fifth-ranked Mountaineers (4-0) for Friday in Tampa.
Win or lose, the sky-high Bulls are anticipating still another first: The very first sellout in 63,000-seat Raymond James Stadium. Only about 3,000 tickets remained late Saturday night.
“Fun Is Just Beginning For Charging Bulls” read a headline on the sports pages of Sunday’s Tampa Tribune.
“Now they don’t have to take it one game (at a time),” the column by Martin Fennelly suggested. “There’s one game, one time.
“West Virginia, next Friday, 8 p.m.”
Both teams appear to be coming off one of their best performances. While the Mountaineers were mauling East Carolina 48-7, South Florida was disposing of North Carolina 37-10.
It had to be a relaxing, fun-loving afternoon for both squads.
So much so, players and coaches at WVU as well as USF started thinking about the following week’s showdown long before Saturday’s games had ended.
WVU coach Rich Rodriguez, who called the performance against ECU the best overall in several years, admitted that his charges already were thinking about the Big East opener.
“It’s a conference game, and the guys are anxious to starting Big East play,” he said. “USF us a really good football team. I’ve said this before, the Big East from top to bottom is as good as any conference in the country.”
WVU players appearing in the interview room also were willing to talk about the South Florida contest. “I felt like this was a statement we wanted to make,” said senior wide receiver Darius Reynaud. ”We played very well in all three phases.”
Jim Leavitt, USF head coach since it started football 10 years ago, admitted that he began looking to WVU in the fourth quarter of the North Carolina game.
Cornerback Mike Jenkins was quoted in The Tampa Tribune, “Coach Leavitt’s exact words: ‘I don’t want to lie, but in the back of my mind I was thinking about West Virginia. But then again, everybody was.’”
With Louisville already a shocking two-game loser West Virginia-South Florida shapes up as perhaps the earliest of the biggest battles leading to the 2007 Big East championship.
o Patrick Beilein has changed his mind about serving as a graduate assistant in basketball at Michigan this year.
The former WVU standout has accepted an offer to plasy professionally in Ireland and will depart on Friday.
His father, John, had been looking forward to having him on his coaching staff for his first year at the Big Ten school. He told the Ann Arbor News, “I think he would have been a tremendous help. An opportunity dropped out of the sky.”
Patrick said simply that he felt he had a little game left. “It just kind of happened. I knew I still could play a little bit.”
John Beilein doesn’t mind, though. “He can coach later on, but he can’t always play,” he reasoned.
